Deal Talk

The Department of Justice has significant concerns regarding the proposed acquisition of Aetna (NYSE: AET) and Humana (NYSE: HUM). Officials from both companies will meet Friday with regulators, according to the report. The main concern facing regulators is deciding if a merger of the two insurers will limit choices for Medicare Advantage health plans among the elderly.

Polycom (NASDAQ: PLCM) reported an end to its Mitel (NASDAQ: MITL) merger deal and approved a new merger deal with Siris Capital.

In The News

Three people were in custody while a fourth suspect exchanged gunfire with police authorities. A sniper shot 11 officers, five fatally. Downtown Dallas was in lock-down early Friday and at least one of the shooters has been killed in a gunfight with police. "We still don't know all the facts but we do know that there has been a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement," U.S. President Barack Obama said from the NATO summit in Warsaw Poland.

This comes within 48 hours after videos showed police shooting and killing two men in Louisiana and Minnesota. On Friday morning, Smith & Wesson (NASDAQ: SWHC), Taser (NASDAQ: TASR) and other gun-related stocks were trading noticeably higher.

U.S. Federal health regulators dealt a blow to Theranos, banning founder Elizabeth Holmes from operating a blood-testing laboratory for at least two years and yanking regulatory approval for its California lab. The startup rose to prominence on the promise it could detect health ailments by testing blood drawn cheaply by the mere prick of a finger. Authorities who reviewed its practices last year found that all 81 patient results it inspected were inaccurate.

Changes to the bankruptcy code were included in a financial-services budget bill the House passed Thursday, along with other regulatory provisions such as congressional oversight of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget. This development could help the largest U.S. financial firms counter criticism that they remain “too big to fail” without a taxpayer bailout.

Blogosphere

"I think investors have gotten smarter overall and that active managers would have to both cut costs and offer a product that was totally divorced from the benchmarks in order to compete for AUM," says Josh Brown. "And that, even then, by definition the active share of the market would still be coming down."